loveliness.

Tag: volcano

• sight seeing in manila: part 2

  Posted at 9:48 am by jasminedesirees, on March 30, 2015

  A few more pictures from our time in Manila and the surrounding area.

  

  We visited Fort Santiago in Manila. It is a citadel built by Spanish conquistadors during the time when the Philippines was under the rule of Spain. Jose Rizal was held captive there, so part of the structure has been turned into a shrine.

  
  

  It was neat to see, but there was a group of high school students visiting the same time we were, and there were so many people inside that I had to leave and wait outside in the gardens. Claustrophobia, it’s a problem.

  We stopped in to check out the Manila Cathedral as well. It was quite close to Fort Santiago, and in a nice area so worth checking out if you are looking for some interesting and historic places to visit in Manila.

  
  

  We also took the 2 hour drive out to Taygaytay volcano, but sadly it was very cloudy that day, so it was hard to see. We considered taking a boat ride across the crater lake to see the volcano up close, but it was really cold and windy, we were dressed inappropriately (for a change) and a 2 hour boat ride sounded kind of miserable.

  
  

  Instead we drove down to a beach on the coast where you could rent little rafts to hang out on for the day. There were restaurants all along the beach, but they didn’t cook anything there, instead they would bring freshly caught seafood and veggies out to your raft, and cook it for you there on a little fire pit.

  
  
  

  On the drive back we were stopped in traffic (traffic is really bad there and it took us forever to get back) and I was looking out the window and saw what looked like a net with big black blobs on it.

  
  
  

  Upon closer inspection, it was the most massive spider web I’ve ever seen, covered in enormous spiders. I’m not even really that scared of spiders, but it was terrifying, like something out of a horror movie.

  
  
  

  Another thing that I noticed while we were cruising around in the countryside was that the grocery stands on the side of the road all had raw chickens and massive sides of beef hanging from them.

  
  
  

  There were little fans to keep the flies away, but it was so different from the way I’ve seen meat displayed and sold in any other country. It was very common though, so obviously it isn’t that dangerous, if it made everybody sick they wouldn’t do it anymore, right?

  
  
  

  We were only in Manila for two days, and we wanted to see as much as possible, so we slept on the plane for Indonesia (after a 13 hour wait at the airport!) and just arrived ready to get going when we landed.

  
  
  
  

  We did pretty well, considering we hadn’t been to bed the night before, but by supper time on our first day there we were basically walking zombies.

  
  
  
  
  

  There were a few places I wanted to see that we weren’t able to get to because of our very short timeline (we really wanted to go to Palawan, and go diving!) but the Philippines has so many beautiful places to visit that two days in Manila is probably all I’ll ever get.

  
  
  

  Posted in Philippines, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged Fort Santiago, jose rizal, manila, Manila Cathedral, philippines, Spanish conquistadors, taygaytay, travel, volcano

• trekking mt. rinjani: day 3

  Posted at 10:52 am by jasminedesirees, on January 28, 2015

  Continued from Trekking Mt. Rinjani Day 1 and Day 2.

  On the last morning of our trek, our guide Jamal woke us up at 2:30 AM to start our trek to the summit of the mountain.

  Even as we were crawling out of our sleeping bags, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to go or not. The wind had been howling all night, and it was absolutely freezing outside.

  

  

  We all huddled together in the porters tent for tea and biscuits, and Jamal explained how the next few hours would go. We would be hiking for 3 hours, in the dark, up the side of the rim, across a narrow strip that was only one meter wide at some points.

  On either side, it was a straight drop down.

  Once we left camp, we wouldn’t be able to come back unless we came back all together, because there were a couple of places on the climb where you could take a wrong turn, especially in the dark, and end up lost.

  

  

  Jamal told us we could go if we wanted, but he wasn’t going up with us, one of the porters would take us. Only about 5 of us decided to make the trip. Derek didn’t come, luckily, because I wore every single piece of clothing both of us brought.

  I wasn’t even sure I was going to go, when I went back to the tent to get ready, but then I figured I’d come this far, so I stuffed a Snickers in my pocket, and pulled a pair of socks onto my hands, and headed out.

  

  

  

  I made it exactly 5 steps before I tripped over a rock in the dark and fell flat on my face. Luckily it was so dark that nobody else noticed, and we all set off.

  I regretted my decision almost immediately. It was freezing, windy, and dark, but the worst part was that the closer we got to the top, the more the ground went from dirt, to volcanic ash. Every time I took a step, I would sink up to my ankles, and slide backwards a little bit, so for every 2 steps I took, I was only moving one step forward.

  

  

  

  It was realllllllly hard, but if you’ve ever met me, you know I am reallllllly stubborn. After two hours of climbing, a couple of the guys in our group decided they couldn’t keep going, so they huddled together behind a rock to wait for the rest of us to come back down. And then there were four of us.

  We got up to the top just as the sun was coming up. The view was gorgeous, you could see the whole island, and the Gili’s off in the distance. The relief of finally being done climbing was the greatest feeling ever.

  

  

  

  We sat up there for about an hour, and then when we started getting really cold again, headed back down to camp. Going down was so much better than going up. The volcanic ash, so treacherous on the way up, was a blast on the way down, and we ran flat out, sliding the whole way. I only fell twice.

  

  

  Breakfast was ready for us by the time we got back down, but I felt so sick that I couldn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. We packed up camp, and headed back down for 6 more hours of hiking down to the base.

  We stopped for lunch at a rest stop, and were accosted by a particularly brash group of monkeys, and I laid in the shade and dreamed about Sprite.

  

  

  When we were an hour from the bottom, I finally couldn’t take it anymore (I had blisters) and had to take my shoes off and finish off the rest of the hike in the barefoot/in my flip flops. I had the dirtiest little monkey feet in the whole world.

  

  

  The trek ended in a little town with a store, and the first thing I did was buy myself a Sprite, and lay down on the ground. It was the single most glorious thing that’s ever gone into my mouth.

  We loaded into the back of a truck for the hour drive back to the trekking center, grabbed our stuff, and went back to our homestay to shower for the first time since we’d left, and sleep for the next two days straight.

  

  

  I just went back and re-read all three of these posts, and it sounds like a pretty miserable experience. It really wasn’t, it was amazing, one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was really hard, I just want to let you know what you’re in for, but I guarantee you won’t regret it.

  I mean you will at the time, definitely, but like three days later, once you’ve eaten, slept, and showered, you’ll feel invincible.

  

  

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 2 Comments | Tagged hiking, Indonesia, lombok, mt. rinjani, travel, trekking, volcanic ash, volcano

• trekking mt. rinjani: day 2

  Posted at 8:18 am by jasminedesirees, on January 26, 2015

  (Check out part 1 and part 3 of Mt. Rinjani)

  On day 2 of our trekking expedition on Mt. Rinjani, we were woken up just before sunrise, so we could eat breakfast and get going. The second day is the longest day, with the most hiking, about 10 hours to the stopping point for the second night.

  Nobody slept very well, and it was pretty cold when we first woke up, but the porters were awake long before we were, and made a fire and had hot tea waiting for us so we could relax and enjoy the beautiful sunrise.

  

  

  Then we set off down the mountain. Our route for that day was to climb down inside the crater rim to the crater lake, and then climb back up the other side of the crater rim to get to the base of the summit, which we would be attempting the next morning.

  We left camp about 45 minutes before our group of porters, they have to break down camp, and pack everything up, but they are so fast, and have been doing it for so long, that they caught up with us, and passed us, almost immediately. They have to beat their group to the next stop so they can have a fire made and lunch cooking when they arrive. They are pretty much amazing, true story.

  

  

  The initial descent was pretty steep, there were some hand railings, but they were precarious at best. A couple people wiped out, but there weren’t any serious injuries. The sun came out full force about halfway to the lake, and it quickly became very hot.

  It took us about 3 hours to get down to the lake, and by then I was so hot I just kicked off my shoes and ran into the water. It was freezing, but the view was incredible. We were stopping at the lake for lunch but a short hike away from the stopping place was a natural hot springs that we could go swimming in while we were waiting to eat.

  

  

  The water was bright green, and smelled like sulphur. I didn’t go in because I was not feeling good at all by then, I went and had a nap in the shade, but everyone that went in said it was awesome, and that they felt much better afterwards.

  

  We ate lunch, and then started the hike around the lake, and up the other side. It was very strange though, there were dead fish all over the place along the edge of the water. Like hundreds and hundreds of them.

  We asked our guide Jamal about it, and he told us that the President of Indonesia had wanted there to be fish in the crater lake, so he had helicopters full of fish dropped in, but then they couldn’t survive in the water because of the volcano, so they die off in huge numbers. I have no idea if that is true or not.

  

  

  The second half of the second day was pretty brutal. It was gorgeous, hiking through the cliffs with the view of the lake, but it was very hot, and we’d met another group at the lake who were coming the opposite way, and had attempted to make the climb to the summit that morning.

  They told us it was way too windy, and almost nobody made it, and that it was so miserable there were people crying and huddling together behind the rocks. So we had that to look forward to the next day.

  

  

  When we were about 2 hours away from the second night camp, it started to get very steep again, and Jamal told us it was the place where most people get hurt, if they are going to. It was pretty sheer cliffs, and there were occasional hand rails, but it was almost worse to use them because sometimes they would pull right out of the ground.

  

  

  

  Jamal told us a story about one hiker who fell there and broke almost every bone in his body, and a group of porters had to carry him out on a stretcher. It took them a day and a half to get him out of the crater and back to a hospital, and he screamed every time they jostled the stretcher, which I’m sure happens a lot when you’re climbing down the side of a mountain.

  Needless to say, I was superrrrr careful after that.

  

  

  

  We eventually made it up to the top, and our tents were set up, and supper was ready for us since the porters had beat us there by about two hours. As soon as we got there I collapsed into the tent and vowed never to get out again.

  We were up really high by this point, and the clouds were swirling all around the tents, it was amazing. I left the tent door open so I could watch it without moving.

  

  

  

  We ate an early supper, and went to bed right after sunset, because we knew we’d be getting woken up at 2:30 AM to try to make the trek to the summit of the mountain. We didn’t even know at that point if we were going to be able to go, because if it’s too windy they close the climb.

  

  

  

  You have to do the climb in the pitch dark to be up there for sunrise, so it’s already pretty dangerous without adding gale force winds. Jamal told us he’d wake us in the morning, and we’d find out then if we were going.

  

  

  The first night we’d been kind of in some rocks against the cliff, but the second night we were out in the open with no shelter.

  The wind was blowing so hard that the side of the tent kept blowing down and covering our faces while we were sleeping, but I was so exhausted from the last two days that I slept like the dead, and didn’t move at all until Jamal stuck his flashlight into our tent.

  

  

  To be continued on day 3…

  

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 6 Comments | Tagged crater lake, hiking, Indonesia, lombok, mt. rinjani, travel, trekking, volcano

• trekking mt. rinjani: day 1

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on January 21, 2015

  (Check out part 2 and part 3 of Mt. Rinjani)

  As I mentioned here, while we were in Indonesia in Lombok, we ended up doing the 3 day Mt. Rinjani hike. I had never heard of it before we got to Gili T, and it sounded kind of cool, but also, every single person I’d met that had done it said it was really, really hard.

  You could tell who had just gotten back from the hike when you saw them out on the streets of Senggigi, because they just looked completely shattered.

  

  

  We kind of thought it would be cool, but didn’t really look into it that much, and then one day D and I just kind of looked at each other and were like, “When are we going to be in Lombok again? Let’s do it”. So here is the story of our Mt. Rinjani trek, broken out by day:

  On the day we left, we got picked up from our homestay in Senggigi, around 5am. We each had a backpack with the warmest clothes we had, and 400 Snickers bars.

  We got dropped off at the climbing center in Senaru, and they gave us banana pancakes for breakfast. I hate banana pancakes, so I was playing with the monkeys climbing in the trees instead.

  

  There were about 10 people total in our group, from all over the world. We had a couple guys from the UK, a girl from Spain, a Canadian couple, and 2 Danes, a mother and daughter. The mother was in her 60’s, and she was very impressive. It was a very hard 3 days, and she kept up with us the whole time.

  Our guide was named Jamal, and he was very sweet and funny. Each group goes up with a guide, and a few porters, depending on how many people are in the group. The porters’ job is to carry all of the camping supplies: tent, sleeping bag, mattresses, food, water, etc.

  

  

  They hike up the mountain carrying extremely heavy loads balanced on both ends of a bamboo pole, usually wearing flip flops, and holding a cigarette in one hand. They only make $15 USD per day, and the goal is to eventually become a guide, but speaking English is a job requirement, so many of the porters use their time with the trekking groups to practice.

  Jamal told us his first day as a porter he made it up to the crater rim, but it was so hard that he set his load down and cried.

  

  

  The first day was pretty hard, it was up hill the whole way (obviously) and it was pretty hot outside. We stopped for a break every 1KM, so I just kept telling myself that I only had to make it to the next rest stop.

  This went on for 6 KM (it was 8 KM total the first day).

  By the time we reached the lip of the crater rim I was completely exhausted and I kind of thought I was going to cry when I realized we had 2 more days like that, but the second I came up on the ridge and saw the crater lake, I immediately forgot about how hard it had been to get up there, and I was so happy we made the trek.

  

  

  It was the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. I got a huge adrenaline rush, and spent at least an hour running all over trying to get pictures from different angles, and just enjoying the view. Beside me, a guy got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend.

  

  

  We set up camp on one of the mountain cliffs and the porters made us a delicious dinner. We stayed up chatting, and watching sunset over the mountain, and hung out for a bit just enjoying the view and the millions of stars we could see.

  I remember thinking that I wished it was warmer out so we could just sleep outside under the stars.

  

  

  

  It was incredibly windy up there, I barely slept at all because I was freezing, and because I kept thinking we were going to get blown over the edge.

  

  

  During one particularly nasty gust of wind our tent collapsed, and the cover blew off, so we ended up sleeping outside under the stars anyway. Be careful what you wish for.

  

  

  To be continued on day 2….

  

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 13 Comments | Tagged Indonesia, lombok, mt. rinjani, travel, trekking, volcano

• hiking mount batur

  Posted at 8:16 am by jasminedesirees, on December 3, 2014

  The first thing I will say about hiking to the top of Mount Batur to watch the sunrise, is that it is amazing and breathtaking and gorgeous and you should definitely, definitely do it while you’re in Bali.

  The second thing is, for the love of God, wear every piece of clothing you brought with you. People kept telling me to dress really warm, but I am very stubborn and had already decided what would be appropriate volcano hiking gear, and refused to listen to anybody.

  I also was thinking of the time we climbed to the top of Pura Lempuyang, and people told me to bring a jacket, and it was not cold at all by my standards so I had to carry it the whole way.

  

  

  I figured that since I am Canadian, I have a higher tolerance for cold, and since I spent most of my time in Amed wishing it wasn’t so freaking hot out, it would be nice to be out in the brisk morning air.

  It was. The air at the bottom of the mountain at 2 am was glorious. And then we started climbing. And during the two hour climb to the top, I was so hot and sweaty I wished I would have worn even less than I was wearing.

  But once we got to the top, and stopped moving, I was whistling a different tune. Or at least I would have been, if I’d have been able to feel my face.

  

  

  We started the climb up the mountain at about 3:30 A.M. It’s pitch black, but everyone gets a flashlight, and it’s mandatory that every group has a guide. It was really beautiful to look back behind you as you were climbing to see the string of flashlights bobbing along in the darkness. I wanted to take a picture, but I know my limits, photography-wise, and I am pretty confident it would have just been a black fuzzy blur.

  There are two places where you can stop and watch the sunrise. One is the main area where most people hang out, and the other is the very, very top. It’s another 30 minutes climb past the main area, and it’s a hard and treacherous climb (I would like to note that this was before I had climbed Mout Rinjani in Lombok. Now it seems like a leisurely stroll in the park. But more on that later).

  Being me, I obviously decided immediately that we hadn’t come all the way up there to not make it to the very top, so up we went.

  

  

  The climb to the summit isn’t actually very far, but because the very top of the mountain is coated by layers and layers of volcanic ash, it’s very hard to climb. You sink in above your ankles with every step, and you also slide back a little bit with every step, so it takes a really long time to make any real progress. On top of that, it was incredibly windy, and we weren’t moving fast enough to keep warm so it was bitingly cold.

  Have I sold you on this yet? Perfect.

  

  

  Once you kept to the top, it’s completely worth it. We found a little spot to sit down, and one of the guides brought us coffee. The sun was just starting to peak over the top of the mountain.

  And then right at that moment, an enormous cloud appeared, and blocked the entire thing.

  

  

  Just when I was contemplating flinging myself over the edge since we’d made that journey for nothing, the clouds parted for about 15 seconds. Just long enough to snap a few pictures, and everyone at the top with us jumped up and started cheering.

  Then the clouds came again. And this kept happening over and over again. Just when you thought the clouds would never move and we wouldn’t be able to see anything, they would part again and give us a few seconds of complete magnificence.

  

  

  We were up there for about an hour before we started the climb down. The guides made us breakfast on top, bananas and eggs cooked in the little pockets of volcano steam, it’s pretty cool to watch.

  Then we started the trek down. It takes about an hour and a half, and you come down a different way, skirting the crater rim, and then descending into the valley filled with lava rock from all the years of eruptions.

  

  

  Once we got to the bottom, our driver picked us up and drove us the hour and a half back to Amed.

  This hike was definitely one of the best things we did in Bali, and I can’t recommend it enough. But please, please don’t wear shorts. My legs turned blue. It was not ideal.

  

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 10 Comments | Tagged batur, hiking, Indonesia, mount batur, sunrise, travel, volcano

• lombok: trekking essentials

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on October 21, 2014

  Tomorrow we get up at 5 a.m. for a 3-day trekking expedition to the top of Mt. Rinjani, an active volcano. We did trekking in Thailand, but that was more of a hang out in the jungle for a few days, eat some curry, and smoke some bush weed sort of situation.

  This is more of a see that incredibly tall mountain, maybe try to get to the very top by hiking for three days in the blazing Indonesian heat kind of thing.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if we’ll make it. I don’t know if I’ll have to be carried back down.

  But I do know that we did not bring enough Snickers.

  

  Posted in Indonesia, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged Indonesia, lombok, mount rinjani, travel, trekking, volcano

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